April 14 club meeting.
Guest speaker, Patrick McKowan from Create WV spoke to our students about his love of technology and how he became involved in this field and how he wished that he had had the opportunity at such an early age that our students have to learn programming!
Patrick is optimistic about the technology future for our State and has pledged his on-going assistance to help our students progress in this field.
Patrick, we accept your kind offer!!
In related matters, Zack and Jackson demonstrated how they solved the previous months coding challenge. Both were commended for not only solving the challenge but also for the quality of their presentations! Thanks guys!
February 24, 2018 WVCC meeting
Great meeting today!
Guess speaker Jeff Vandall, Sales Director for the WV Development, office gave our students an overview of the technology needs facing our State and strongly encouraged their continuing efforts toward achieving their goals in this field.
Jeff's impressive background and expertise in this area was challenging, thoughtful and inspiring. Thank you Jeff for taking the time and interest in WVCC's students as they continue to acquire skills in this vital area!
Also present at our meeting was John Giroir, Director, National Youth Science Camp and a member of WVCC's Advisory Committee.
Over the past several weeks, John has volunteered his time and expertise with helping WVCC staff enhance our club's Social Media skills and presence in the technology marketplace. His personal attributes of graciousness and selflessness in his desire to help has been everything you would hope for and more in a mentor. Thank you, John!
Coding Challenge - Feb 3, 2018
We meet again Feb 24 in the Innovation Center at the University of Charleston. Use your favorite language to complete this week's coding challenge - bring your repl.it login and show off your work.
Show off your solution(s) by posting a link to your repl in the comments below.
Happy Coding - Mr. Brown
Dan McElroy's update on WVCC
Currently, WVCC is the largest coding club in the State with 130 student scholarships.
WVCC is headquartered in Charleston and operates out of the University of Charleston's Innovation Center. WVCC has a core staff of 5 educators and an Advisory Board of 10 members.
WVCC partners with Treehouse, a leading tech-ed company based in Portland, Oregon.
WVCC is in it's third year of operation and is funded this year through the Martha Gaines and Russell Wehrle Foundation and the Glotfelty Foundation.
WVCC has an active website which outlines it's mission, vision, values, and current organizational chart, as well as featuring multiple photographs of students "in action."
WVCC has built a scalable model of program delivery with the following advantages:
1. Speed and flexibility of implementation
2. Seamless adaptability between schools and businesses
3. State-of-the-art training in all facets of learning to code
4. On-going management data collection and distribution
5. Low cost: $173.00 per 12 month year per student or $14.42 per month.
6. Available 24/7 anytime, anywhere type of program
Here's how it works: There are two ways a school can implement our model.
1. They can form an after school club like any other club. The supervisor of the club does not have to be a teacher. What is needed is a motivated adult willing to oversee a group of students. WVCC staff will provide training and on-going guidance.
2. A regular class designated for coding can be offered. A teacher is not required to have any specialized training. Expertise is built into the program by utilizing the Treehouse platform which contains a plethora of world class teachers along with a worldwide community support system. WVCC staff provides initial and on-going guidance through on-site visits and teleconferencing. Also, available for students is a "custom track" designed for groups that breaks down complex sections into small steps to insure success. Once students become familiar with a computer language, they are encouraged to develop projects to gain real world programming experience. Efforts are made to reach out to area businesses for possible student projects. This offers the following benefits: a concrete relationship between school and business, opportunities for students to use newly acquired skills, encourage businesses growth, and an opportunity for businesses to, in-turn, give back any reward they think fair to the class or club. Lastly, WVCC believes that this project based experience accelerates learning and mirrors the way real world programmers work.
KVCC undergoes name change!!
The Kanawha Valley Coding Club has changed it's name to the West Virginia Coding Club!
Why?
1. Our perfected model of operation is now scalable to all counties in West Virginia.
2. Two of our current 4 counties of expansion lie on the fringes of the geographical boundaries of the Kanawha Valley.
3. Our new name aligns more accurately with our mission of offering all WV students the opportunity to learn coding.
We now look forward to further expansion of learning to code in our great State!
KVCC attends WV Coding & Cyber Summit
KVCC's President Dan McElroy and technologist, Moses Scarberry attended this very productive meeting on Thursday, Oct. 12. Many interesting speakers from the State and national tech. world as well as WV Senator's Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito.
General theme was what we need to do at the local and State levels to prepare our young people for the skills they will need to thrive in this technology driven world.
It was nice to hear KVCC recognized for our work in this area!
We continue "striking for change."
Sept. 30 Club Meeting
Great meeting today highlighted by a zoom session with Matt, of Treehouse!
Matt gave our students an overview of how they could plug into the Treehouse world community to seek help when they get "stuck" on a problem. Help is literally a click away! Matt also emphasized the best and most accelerated learning takes place when students apply what they are learning to building real world applications.
Speaking of building applications, our dynamic duo, Sully and Zack gave us an update on their efforts in building an application for U.C. We are so proud of you guys for taking this on!
Finally, the best news of all! "Drum Roll Please!" "Hallelujah Chorus1" KVCC has been informed by The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation that our funding for the coming year has been more than doubled!! WOW! Many thanks to our co-founders, advisory committee members, students and many others in the community who support our efforts to build a talent pool of young West Virginians. These funds will allow us to not only maintain our Kanawha County students but also enable us to expand into Boone and Putnam Counties.
We continue "striking for change."
West Virginia Coding & Cyber Summit
KVCC would like to thank Anne Barth, Executive Director of TechConnect WV for recognizing our efforts in bringing coding training to our public school systems. Anne has graciously offered KVCC a complimentary display table and 2 complimentary registrations for the upcoming WV Coding & Cyber Summit on Oct. 12, at the Advanced Technology Center in South Charleston.
Both WV Senators, Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito will be participating in a Computer Coding/Cyber Opportunity Overview.
KVCC is thrilled to be a part of this important meeting!
Zack Mowrer
Sully and I are going to be working on a new app for UC Tutoring for students to use on iOS and Android. The problem with the current implementation is that it is not accessible for students to use on mobile devices easily, so we were asked to create an application to solve this problem.